Registration: Available at bolderboulder.com/register. Also available at the Bolder Boulder store (1631 28th St.) and at select Sports Authority locations.

The thorough loss of time is a blessing only in hindsight. At that moment, when Lauryn Trede arose from a painful abyss after what she believed was a routine trip to the local pub for an evening with friends, her world was irrecoverably changed.

Tubes jutted from all corners of her battered body. Her pelvis was shattered and a chunk of her skull was on ice as doctors worked to relieve pressure on her brain. She had no idea three weeks had passed since she bid her friends farewell that fateful night.

An avid runner with four Chicago Marathons under her belt, Trede had run her first Bolder Boulder less than a year earlier. While grateful to be alive, at the beginning of 2015 Trede was forced to face the reality that whatever she achieved physically the rest of her life would be done so only after starting completely from scratch.

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Trede will make an emotional return to the Bolder Boulder this year, with plans to walk the 10-kilometer course with her best friend Tracie Ward at her side. Given it was less than a year and a half ago when her life easily could have ended, Trede already is bracing for an emotional finish Monday morning.

"It was a conversation I had with Tracie in January and I said, 'Let's do this,' and she was gung-ho about it," Trede said. "I definitely don't take things for granted anymore. Or people. I'm going to be a crying baby. Finishing it will definitely be emotional for sure."

The 37-year old Trede played volleyball and basketball while growing up in her hometown of Elgin, Ill., a blue-collar town about 35 miles northwest of Chicago. Around the time she turned 30, Trede became an avid runner and soon was a regular participant in the Chicago Marathon. A transfer within her company allowed Trede to move to Colorado in 2012, and her relatively new passion for distance running flourished.

Then everything changed in late December 2015.

Trede was attempting to cross Parker Road southwest of Denver when she was struck by an SUV traveling approximately 45 miles per hour. A traumatic brain injury was the most pressing of Trede's critical injuries and, despite the broken pelvis, it was the brain injury that forced Trede into a long cycle of rehabilitation.

She endured three brain surgeries within the first three months after the accident and spent the first month of 2015 at Craig Hospital in south Denver. Trede was in a wheelchair until June and could not even use a walker until October. As recently as March Trede still was leaning on a cane, yet her determination to keep progressing toward the active life she once knew became a marvel to those close to her, albeit an expected one.

"When I think of Lauryn, I think of someone who is confident and strong," Ward said. "Not only is she physically strong, but she's just able to overcome anything that comes in her way. She's very much mentally the same person despite suffering a traumatic brain injury. I'm so thankful her mental capacity is still there even with some of the physical limitations she has. If anyone can recover from the physical limitations, it's Lauryn. She's a strong-willed person."

Trede's father, Don Trede, traveled from Illinois to spend four months at his daughter's side as she recovered. While she has regained her mental functions — Trede has returned to work part time and was cleared to drive again a few months ago — the trauma to the right side of her brain has left lingering limitations along the left side of her body, not unlike complications suffered by stroke victims. Trede has credited part of her recovery to her enthusiastic participation in hippotherapy, which uses horseback riding as a form of cognitive training and balance restoration.

This past winter, Trede set her sights on returning to the Bolder Boulder in 2016. On Monday morning she will be at the starting line alongside her hippotherapist, Ward and a couple of other friends to complete a race course for the first time since she ran a half marathon less than two months before her accident.

The fitness Trede built through running was a big part of how she managed to survive her traumatic injuries. Slowly reclaiming that fitness is what keeps pushing her forward.

"I just thought a year ago that I don't want to rely on other people to go to the bathroom and shower," Trede said. "Someone that was probably less fit probably wouldn't have survived. I've come a long way."

Trede and her crew are planning to wear Wonder Woman outfits during the Bolder Boulder. Chances are they won't be the only ones donning such garbs in a race that typically draws as many costumes as a Halloween dance.

Yet it's likely few of the tens of thousands pacing through the course will boast a story that is as remarkable a wonder as Trede's.

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